Homescreens: do we have it too easy?

Over my three or so years with Android, there's been one aspect of the OS that I've found myself limiting more and more - the number of homescreens on my devices.

It's baffling to me in a number of ways. When I first started off with a Motorola Defy, stock Blur gave you all the room you could need, and then some with several homescreens for your optional customising pleasure. Admittedly, Blur widgets required a lot space on your screen to be usable in any way - and yes, I did for a time rely heavily on Blur, before I was introduced to custom ROMs. Furthermore, I found I was able to make use of all seven homescreens because of how Blur organised rows and columns, wherein you were allowed around 4 columns and 4 rows of space, excluding the unmodifiable dock on the bottom.

A typical Blur setup - Source AndroidBeats

Once I found out my particular Defy model would never receive the 2.3 update, unlike its Defy+ brother, I finally flipped the table and explored my options. Instead of an early upgrade, I figured I'd root and slap a CM7 ROM on it.

I've never looked back.



CM7 was unlike Blur at all (which wasn't surprising). Blur at the time was so richly laden with useless social media garbage that literally sucked the life out of your device, particularly if you ran most of Blur's widgets and feeds services. This new ROM was unlike anything I'd expected, the battery was an ample improvement over stock, it ran smoother without Blur pulling its legs into the mud, and you had there was more room on the screen by default, to customise to your heart's content. With five homescreens to start off with (expandable to nine), and already a better use of screen real-estate through layout, I found I was able to fit just about everything I needed across the five screens - widgets and all.

Then I bought a pre-paid credit card and began to shop on the Play Store, and all of a sudden, the more apps and widgets I bought - the smaller the number of my homescreens eventually became.

Current Defy setup

One of the main culprits for this change was Android Pro Widgets (APW), which was among one of the better widgets I've ever bought. I appreciate the way it consolidates everything I need in a widget, from presenting feeds from Google Reader, my Calendar and daily agenda - as well as the 'Quick Event' app for setting new events or reminders easily, a messaging widget and more. Each of my devices have at least two APW widgets across their homescreens.

More recently, the the larger screen of the Galaxy Nexus has enabled me to play around with those columns and rows tweaks on launchers, and I've found the 7x7 layout to allow for just about every app I use regularly to fit on one homescreen, with widgets on the other two.

All I have on the GNex, along with app-drawer tabs

Because of these additions, and some clever folder management in the app-drawer, I've now cut down to three homescreens on each device (which was easy on the N1 with its restricting internal storage), and I find myself annoyed at this outcome.

I'd love to be able to have multiple homescreens almost chock-full of apps and widgets - but Google made it all too easy when they began to make folders of any type the standard, and when widgets stopped being a standalone widget, and began combining multiple features so you don't need more of them. I know it's petty, since it's these advancements which make our life easier, but life isn't meant to be easy - and we're getting used to having just about anything ready at our fingertips.

Shamefully, this is all the homescreen I need
at the moment on the N7

I've mentioned somewhere in earlier posts that I frequently revert back to older devices to appreciate the technology we once had, and how once upon a time we were astounded at how fast these devices were - but even though they're unbearably slow by today's standards, the tweaks I've added to them, have made them all too easy to use. They're missing what made the same level of progress they had when they were released - they're too personalised, largely with thanks to custom ROMs.

So right now, I think I've gone completely off the rails, but every now and then these thoughts pop into my mind. I think about progress an awful lot - small advancements astonish me in ways most wouldn't care to acknowledge or bother over, and though I'm grateful with the level of ease we are now afforded on our Android devices, I have to think back to how hard we had it in the past. Still, it's always been easier for Android users to have everything they needed across their homescreens as opposed to iOS users.

I'm most grateful for that.

What are you're thoughts? Am I nuts? Do I have a point in all this? Let me know in the comments below: